The Astronomy of the Kamilaroi People and their Neighbours

The Kamilaroi people and their neighbours, the Euahlayi, Ngemba, and Murrawarri, are an Aboriginal cultural grouping located in the northwest and north central of New South Wales. They have a rich history, but have been missed in much of the literature concerned with sky knowledge in culture. This study collected stories, some of which have not previously been reported in an academic format, from Aboriginal people practicing their culture, augmented with stories from the literature, and analysed the data to create a database of sky knowledge that will be added to the larger body of Aboriginal cultural knowledge in Australia. We found that there is a strong sky culture reflected in the stories, and we also explored the stories for evidence of an ethnoscientific approach to knowledge of the sky.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure

On Separation for Multiple Access Channels

We examine the issue of separation for multiple access channels. We demonstrate that source-channel separation holds for noisy multiple access channels, when the channel operates over a common finite field. This robustness of separation is predicated on the fact that noise and inputs are independent, and we examine the loss from failure of separation when noise is input dependent

Post-mortem toxicology: A pilot study to evaluate the use of a Bayesian network to assess the likelihood of fatality

The challenge of interpreting post-mortem drug concentrations is well documented and relies on appropriate sample collection, knowledge of case circumstances as well as reference to published tables of data, whilst taking into account the known issues of post-mortem drug redistribution and tolerance. Existing published data has evolved from simple data tables to those now including sample origin and single to poly drug use, but additional information tends to be specific to those reported in individual case studies. We have developed a Bayesian network framework to assign a likelihood of fatality based on the contribution of drug concentrations whilst taking into account the pathological findings. This expert system has been tested against casework within the coronial jurisdiction of Sunderland, UK. We demonstrate in this pilot study that the Bayesian network can be used to proffer a degree of confidence in how deaths may be reported in cases when drugs are implicated. It has also highlighted the potential for deaths to be reported according to the pathological states at post-mortem when drugs have a significant contribution that may have an impact on mortality statistics. The Bayesian network could be used as complementary approach to assist in the interpretation of post-mortem drug concentrations

Effects of writing to learn in pre-calculus mathematics on achievement and affective outcomes for students in a community college setting: a mixed methods approach

2011 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.The intent of this study was to explore an intervention, Writing to Learn, within a college level mathematics course and examine how Writing to Learn Mathematics as an assessment tool in Trigonometry relates to overall achievement and self-reflection with respect to learning mathematics. The purpose of this study was to provide empirical evidence and determine the effect such an intervention had on undergraduate students' academic achievement as well as their mathematic conceptual growth and metacognitive growth. This study employed a mixed method approach using a qualitative study design element with emphasis on template analysis and was supported with inferential statistics from a cross-over study design implemented in a concurrent and parallel format. The quantitative portion of the study examined differences in students' exam scores for the portion of the course where students experienced Writing to Learn Mathematics versus the portion of the course where students did not experienced Writing to Learn Mathematics to determine if writing had an effect on students' performance on exams. While the results from the quantitative portion of the study were not statistically significant, effect sizes indicated a small effect. Paralleling the quantitative phase, the qualitative portion of the study utilized an approach referred to as Template Analysis to reveal the nature of students' individual metacognitive functioning and changes that occurred during the course of this study as students utilized various writing activities which engaged students in individual reflective writing as part of the course. The initial, a priori, codes were modify, expanded, and revised to reveal three themes focused on metacognitive transformations: changes as a learner, reflections and writing, and value of writing. While there were inconsistencies between results due to different methodological approaches in data collection, information that may otherwise have been overlooked was available. The integration of results revealed many students made significant changes in approaches to learning and also made deep and meaningful conceptual connections as a result of Writing to Learn Mathematics. It also was apparent writing in mathematics and about mathematics encouraged students to reflect on what they were learning and facilitated meaningful connections about content and themselves as learners

The partial characterisation of an NFKB homologue from the South African abalone haliotis midae utilising in vivo and in vitro techniques

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 112-116).Haliotis midae is an important marine gastropod that is commercially farmed along the South African coastline. The demand for the edible foot of the abalone far exceeds the supply, as such monitoring the health status of commercially farmed abalone is important if the demand is to be met. In farming conditions, bacterial infections can spread rapidly leading to mass mortalities amongst the abalone population. In order for treatment to be effective, there needs to be an effective monitoring system in place that can assess the health status of the abalone. This study sought to address these issues by identifying a candidate gene that could be an ideal biomarker with respect to a bacterial stress

Parasite motility is critical for virulence of African trypanosomes.

African trypanosomes, Trypanosoma brucei spp., are lethal pathogens that cause substantial human suffering and limit economic development in some of the world's most impoverished regions. The name Trypanosoma ("auger cell") derives from the parasite's distinctive motility, which is driven by a single flagellum. However, despite decades of study, a requirement for trypanosome motility in mammalian host infection has not been established. LC1 is a conserved dynein subunit required for flagellar motility. Prior studies with a conditional RNAi-based LC1 mutant, RNAi-K/R, revealed that parasites with defective motility could infect mice. However, RNAi-K/R retained residual expression of wild-type LC1 and residual motility, thus precluding definitive interpretation. To overcome these limitations, here we generate constitutive mutants in which both LC1 alleles are replaced with mutant versions. These double knock-in mutants show reduced motility compared to RNAi-K/R and are viable in culture, but are unable to maintain bloodstream infection in mice. The virulence defect is independent of infection route but dependent on an intact host immune system. By comparing different mutants, we also reveal a critical dependence on the LC1 N-terminus for motility and virulence. Our findings demonstrate that trypanosome motility is critical for establishment and maintenance of bloodstream infection, implicating dynein-dependent flagellar motility as a potential drug target

Optimization of Magnetic Chicane for Maximum Electron Beam Compression

Research concerned with optimizing a negatively chirped, relativistic, short electron beam using General Particle Tracer (GPT). The GPT simulations have the ability to include realistic beam effects such as space charge, fringe fields and emittance. A series of electron beam energy spreads were simulated through several different iterations of dipole magnets and, utilizing GPT\u27s optimization ability, the most consistent set of parameters was selected and displayed on the poster. With our presented iteration of parameters we noted a 89.5% compression of the electron beam along the propagating axis